What have we been doing?

Well, stuff. Henry has been waking up at 11:00 and yelling "Mama!" and I cannot resist. Either that or he just refuses to go to sleep to begin with. Either way, I go into his room, he reaches his arms up to me, I pick him up, and he says "Henry big bed?" And then we spend the rest of the night kissing and kicking each other, as in it's 2:03 am and Henry's in my face, saying "Kiss neck?" He knows I'll ALWAYS kiss on his neck, no matter the crazy hour. Or I'm shoving him away from me because his head is in my ribcage or his foot is kicking my neck. Needless to say, we don't feel refreshed on those days. But this morning, I was pleasantly awakened not until...6:30!! Three cheers for Henry!

Yesterday I volunteered at Aidan's school. So fun! I wanted a chance to see how Aidan's class works, and I gave up my one chunk of free time that I get during the week so I could do that. It was so worth it. I'm planning on volunteering at least one Monday per month. I sat behind Mrs. Lindeman's desk, and occasionally would get up to get things. Aidan would grab me every time to show me his writer's workshop stories (he Loves writer's workshop, he tells me) or to point out the schedule of things they were doing that day. Once he came behind the desk to show me a story that he had written about going to the doctor and getting 5 shots. That happened last summer, before kindergarten. Must have made some kind of impression on him. Anyway, when it came time for me to go (I had to get the other boys) Aidan didn't want me to leave. And I didn't want to! He's very sweet.

Aidan has been working a lot on Legos lately. He's building sets in the 8-14 year old range, which speaks to his engineering talents, true, but also Lego's incredibly good instructions. This doesn't mean building these is without frustration. Or tears. But I think if we could give him a steady supply of Lego sets to build, he'd be happy. Here are two of the sets he's built recently: Republic Fighter Tank and Republic Attack Shuttle.

Oce has been a sweet boy. We spent most of the afternoon last Friday pretending...to be postal employees as well as creating a Dora/Diego/animal/astronaut story and using all those characters to act it out. Owen loves the outdoors, which is good, because the little man cannot sit still. I've never seen someone actually not be able to be still. Anyway, we got blasted with snow, cold and wind all at once last night, and Andy went out to snowblow. Nobody else wanted to get near the front door, let alone deal with the ritual of putting on snowpants, mittens, hat, coat, boots, scarf before going outside. But that didn't dissuade Oce! Oh no. He helped daddy by shoveling the sidewalk. Then he played out there, in that 10 degree weather, in the dark, until I called him in half an hour later. He came in rosy-cheeked, happy, and considerably calmer than before he went out.

A&O have started swimming lessons again. It's insanely cold outside, and it feels a little bit insane to be putting on swimming trunks this time of year, but it's really good for them. I have to figure out a way to handle Henry's pleading, though. He'd watch his brothers for a bit, and then turn to me with an uncertain smile on his face, saying "Henry? Turn?" It broke my heart a little bit.